Flashback

        Introduction
     
      The genre we were given to create a media product on was a Superhero movie and after watching it over a few times I've come to the conclusion that it's quite similar to other films in that genre. For example, the popular superhero movie 'batman begins' has a flashback near to the beginning to establish how and why he gained his powers/skills. My media product begins with a short flashback in black and white (just like in batman) which shows the audience how Michael gained his powers. Another typical supehero convention in my Media Product is a damsel in distress. At the end of the film Dr.Pepper can be seen holding Michael's sister Sarah hostage, this is similar to the film The Dark Knight in which the villian (the Joker) kidnaps Rachel and Batman is left to try and save her.

Damsel in distress

     However, my film does challenge some typical conventions, for example, Michael isn't wearing a cape like in superman or a colourful head to toe costume like that of Spiderman's, he's just in his 'casual' wear. Personally, I feel that my product is effective in representing a professional film through its use of editing. It uses a wide range of shots from close ups to medium shots POV and track shots. This makes the film flow well and fast paced, therefore feeling like a professional action movie.



What social group does my product represent?

My product represents mainly teenagers, Michael being the main focus as he is only 17. However, when he drinks the potion at the beginning he is only 12 years old, this represents young children as being naive for drinking it without questioning what it is. another social group represented in my film is gender. The males, as in every other superhero movie, are the heroes who go to rescue the females. In my media product Michael is shown to chase the villian through a forest to find Sarah and have a stand off with him.

The chase

This represents males as being the powerful and dominant ones; this is quite a positive representation. This sense of dominance if further highlighted through the use of screen time, in my product males are shown to have more time on screen and this represents them as being more important. The woman in my film however was tied up on her knees with tape across her mouth. Becky's performance of Sarah showed her to be screaming for help, showing that she is helpess. This use of Mise-en-scene represented women as being vulnerable, weak and counting on men to come and rescue them. This obviously is a negative representation of women.

Distribution

       Personally, I believe my product would be suitably distributed by an independent institution such as 'Nowhere Fast productions'. The reason I believe this is because like other small films such as 'Colin' my film had a small budget (in my case no budget at all). Becuase of its none existent budget my media product didn't involve any special effects that you'd see in a typical movie, therefore I feel it would be unfit for distribution by a major institution such as 20th Century Fox. Also, many big name films have big named actors starring in it. For example, Batman The Dark Knight has a number of A listers such as Christian Bale, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman. Essentially, big starring names help the distribution considerably. Whereas my film doesn't have any big named actors, obviously and therefore wouldn't be suitable for major distribution. For its best possible chance I would limit the films distribution to Britain only starting off with London and then moving on to other major cities around the UK. This way it would be more cost effective and gain a larger profit. Just like Colin, my media product would have a promotional Facebook page and would be available to view on the Internet. Nowadays, the Internet is accessible in nearly every home around the world. This makes it a powerful tool for marketing as it's cheap and can be viewed by people everywhere. Also, to give my product it's best possible chance i would distribute to small art houses around the UK. Most art houses like the Lighthouse theatre in Wolverhampton show mainly small films, a category my film fits perfectly into. However, the problems with using the Internet for my media product are piracy and people leaving negative comments on film forums and giving away spoilers. Piracy is a huge problem with film making and has left the industry 700 million pounds out of pocket.

Who is the target audience for my product?
           The main target audience for my product is teenagers. This is because in today's world teenagers ages between 15 to 19 are the most likely to visit the cinema and spend a lot of time on the internet. My product involves a fast paced chased and an interesting storyline that would be attractive to the younger generation. However, its not just teenagers that would find my product attractive; marvel fans and people who favour the superhero genre would also be interested. During a lesson we were shown videos of everyone's films and had to write our thoughts and comments on a piece of paper. The majority of the feedback from my film was positive and included comments such as; "very good variety of camera shots", "music is perfect... suspense", "it keeps the audience watching eager to know what will happen next". However, there were a few sugegsted improvements saying that the camera needed to be "more focused". The overall positive feedback suggests to me that my product was extremely successful and would definitely attract my target audience.

How did my group attract our audience?


                 My group attempted to attract our audience through various elements of Mise-en-scene, including costume, props, performance, and location. Firstly, the costumes in my product were somewhat of casual attire. Apart from Dr.Pepper (the villian) who wore a complete black outfit with a balaclava.

Dr. Pepper

This helped to create the idea of a tense and somewhat intimidating character, things a teenagers (Myself) looks for in a film of this genre. Performance also played a part in attracting the audience with Dr. Pepper laughing in an evil way and Sarah screaming on the floor. Performance is extremely important in expressing emotions in a scene and defining characters. If the performance isn't believable then the whole film goes to pot and could potentially become un-interesting for the audience. The final piece of Mise-en-scene we used to address our audience was location. My media product was set in a forest before leading to an abandoned warehouse with boarded windows and bits of debris scattered everywhere. This was important in setting a tense atmosphere and giving the idea that they were in the middle of no-where and helpless. I feel a tense atmosphere was important in attracting our audience and therefore i re-iterated this atmposhere with choice of soundtrack. The soundtrack is fast paced and extremely successful in creating the right, tense atmosphere.

What have I learnt about tehnologies?
            Throughout the process of plotting and creating my media product I have learnt a lot of things; particularly to do with the camera. Before constructing this product I had little knowledge of camera shots and how to use them effectively, every film I previously made consisted of shaky amateur shots, however, now equipped with the knowledge of the different shots and angles I have learnt how to create a film where each invidual shot represesnts something. I have learnt how to hold the camera in order to create these shots, and sometimes used the tripod (something I hadn't done before). When in front of the camera I have learnt different ways to make the film look professional, for example, never look directly into the camera unless in the script. Along with the use of a camera I have learnt how to use computer based technologies such as iMovie on the apple MAC's. Throughout the process of editing I have learnt how to add videos, photos, music and title's where I want them to go and how to cut down clips to create a flowing scene. This is called continuity editing, a key aspect in creating a professional looking film. Over the course of this project my knowledge and understanding of cameras and how to use them successfully has increased. However, in my next project I would use a different editing software programme so that I can add more special effects such as explosions, this is not available on iMovie. This, I believe, would help to make a more professional film for the big screen.

Preliminary task

              At the beginning of the task I had no idea on how to plan and create a film. However, throughout the process my knowledge of the preparation process has increased. For example, at the beginning there were a number of storylines and characters for us to chose from but they just didn't come together. This cost us a lot of time that we could have put towards the actual filming and editing of our film. But as the process went on we became more comfortable with the planning preparation and managed to get ideas to come together successfully, this helped me to learn a lot about the process. Quality of footage at the beginning was also very poor, we were just coming to terms with the camera and the different ways in which we could use it, this meant that our overall footage was affected. For example, some of the shots were shaky and one even showed the tri-pod in the background (big mistake!). But at the task developed and we became more confident with the camera better shots were created and even performance infront of the camera improved. This lead to more quality footage with a range of different professional shots and angles.